The Dragon Isles

Chapter Seven

“Mik! Mik, wake up! It’s nearly dawn.” The sea captain immediately recognized the kender’s small voice buzzing in his ear, but felt reluctant to open his eyes.

“Tell your pup to keep it down,” Ula called from the other side of the makeshift screen.

“I’m not a pup,” Trip said, “though I’ve had people call me a minnow before-people I like, that is. You could call me that, if I decide I like you. I did have an uncle who got turned into a dog once, though. Great Uncle Figswallow…”

“The savage deep save us from kender in the morning!” Ula cried. A muffled sound from her side of the curtain indicated that she’d pulled the covers up over her head.

Mik laughed, rolled out of his hammock, and stretched. “Sleep in if you want,” he called to Ula. “I’m sure you need the time to recover.”

She sighed. “No, I’m fine,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll feel better after my morning swim.” She rose and pulled back the curtain. “Assuming my back recovers from this cot.” She stretched her long limbs, looking very alluring, even in the dim, predawn light.

“Sorry about the accommodations,” Mik said, trying not to stare. “There’s not much room in a caravel-and I doubt milady Meinor would deign to share her cabin.”

“I’d share my cabin-if I had one.” Trip shrugged.

“Karista’s gallantry ends at the point her self-interest begins, I’m afraid,” Mik added.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ula replied. “I’m used to cramped quarters. And this is a fair sight better than where you found me. Where’s that sunburn oil you’ve been putting on me?”

Mik retrieved it from a shelf nearby and handed it to her. Ula poured some oil into her hands and began to smooth it over the vast expanses of her exposed blue skin. Mik found it hard to believe that only yesterday she had seemed near death.

“Are you going to swim home when you feel up to it?” Trip asked.

Ula laughed-a light, musical sound. “Home-when I had one-was a long way from here. Too far to swim.” She smiled, and her eyes glinted predatorily. “You’re headed in the right direction, generally, but you’ll never get to the place in the isles where you’re headed, without my help.”

A cold chill ran down Mik’s spine. “How do you know where we’re going?” he asked.

“I read the Prophecy,” she reminded him. “And I’m no fool, Mik Vardan, though I certainly met you through foolish circumstance.”

“She knows about the Prophecy?” Trip asked, looking quizzically at Mik.

“Yes, she found the parchment and the artifact,” Mik replied irritatedly. “We forgot to pack them away in the chest before she woke up.”

Trip screwed up his small face. “Well, no harm done, I guess. Everyone on ship knows.” His brows drew together in concern. “Maybe we shouldn’t let her swim away, though. She might have friends nearby.”

“The only ‘friends’ I have nearby tied me to that raft,” Ula replied. “Besides, I’m not going anywhere until we’ve recovered that treasure.”

“She knows about the treasure, too?” Trip asked.

Mik nodded grimly.

Trip ran his small fingers through his blond hair. “Oh, yeah. It was in the Prophecy.”

“As I said,” Ula interjected, “you’ll never find the treasure without my assistance. You won’t even find the Dragon Isles. I’m willing to help, though, for a price.”

“And that price would be… ?” Mik asked.

“A share in the treasure-when we find it.”

“What do you need more treasure for?” asked Trip, eyeing her bejeweled costume. “It looks to me like you’re wearing plenty of treasure.”

“These old things?” Ula replied, running her slender fingers over a few of the pieces. “Looks are deceiving. My people use such trinkets as money. Steel doesn’t survive so well underwater.”

A frown crept over Mik’s bearded face. “Why didn’t your former crewmates on the Golden Harvest steal your jewelry before they cast you adrift?”

“They were afraid to touch any of it,” she said with a slight grin. “I told them the jewels were cursed.”

“Cursed? Really?” the kender said, his hazel eyes lighting up.

“Deadly cursed,” the beautiful elf said, straight-faced.

“Sleek,” replied Trip, awe in his small voice.

“Why do we need you to find the Dragon Isles?” Mik said. “We have the Prophecy. We’re on course. According to the parchment, we should reach our goal before the end of the day tomorrow.”

She smiled again, finished oiling her long limbs, and set the bottle back on the shelf. “It’s not so easy as you think.”

“How would you know?”

“I grew up there. The Dragon Isles don’t let just anyone in. You need to know the secret.”

“What secret?”

“If she told us,” said Trip helpfully, “then it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?”

Mik scowled at him. “I’ll discuss it with Karista,” he said.

Ula nodded.

“Now, I need to get on deck and check our course before the stars set.”

“I’ll go with you,” she replied.

“Me, too,” Trip added.

The morning air was crisp, with a stiff, salty breeze blowing from the south. The wind raised goosebumps on Mik’s tanned skin, but seemed to have little effect on Ula. Living underwater, she must be used to the cold, Mik thought.

He reached reflexively for the enchanted fish necklace at his throat, then remembered he’d put it in his sea chest the previous evening. Wearing it too long became tiring and caused more of its jeweled scales to flake off. Mik knew the magic inside it wouldn’t last forever. It was fading, like all the other enchantments in the world-and needed to be used sparingly. The lost gods willing, he’d have no need of the necklace today.

Mik took the tiller from the night helmsman, and adjusted their course to better follow the Great Silver River toward the Seven Cities constellation. Clouds were blowing in from the south, so he made some final calculations to help steer them through the day.

Ula hung a rope over the stem and climbed down into the water. Then she swam in the ship’s wake, her lean form cutting gracefully through the dark water. Trip and the other crew members leaned on the rail, watching her in fascination. When she finally climbed out, the sailors on deck cheered.

Mik smiled and shook his head.

A brief squall that morning drenched the sailors’ bodies, but did little to dampen their spirits. Warm late summer winds from the northwest soon dried out Kingfisher’s sails and her crew. The ship followed the course set by the stars, Mik using his calculations to guide them when the sun hid behind the cotton-like clouds.

He spoke to Karista about Ula’s proposal, but the noblewoman wouldn’t buy any of it. “Just another leech,” Karista said. “We owe her nothing.”

Ula, standing at the rail nearby, must surely have overheard-but she said nothing, only smiling her enigmatic smile. Mik tried not to think about her.

He also tried not to think about the huge diamond glittering amid a pile of treasure in the lost temple. The vision, though, kept tugging at his mind.

Ula retired to his cabin at midday-to escape the summer sun, which had broken through the clouds once more. She was still there when Mik came in for a lunchtime break.

“Well… ?” she asked, leaning forward on her cot.

“Karista isn’t convinced you have any information we need,” he replied. “And, even if she were, I doubt she’d be willing to give up a share of the trade concession she hopes to win.”

“Trade concession?” Ula said. “I wasn’t asking for a cut of the trade concession. I want a cut of the treasure you’re looking for-the one mentioned in the Prophecy.”

“Karista isn’t interested in the treasure,” Mik said. “I’m on my own in that regard.”

“Not any more,” she said with a sly smile.

“How can you be sure any treasure exists?” Mik asked, pouring them both a mug of rum. “Even I’m not sure it exists.”

“I grew up in the isles,” she replied. “I’ve heard rumors of such things before. And I saw that key-like artifact you have locked in your sea chest. Working together, I’m sure we can find riches beyond your imagining.”

Kingfisher’s captain raised his cup and drank. “I’m still not convinced I need another partner,” he said stubbornly.

Ula shook her head and her platinum locks fell pleasingly around her smooth shoulders. “You’ll never get there without my help.”

“We’ll see.”

She raised her glass. “Indeed we will.”

He left Ula in the cabin and went back to work. Karista Meinor and Bok kept mostly out of the way as the crew of Kingfisher kept the vessel on course. Occasionally, Mik spotted the aristocrat checking her copy of the Prophecy.

When the sea elf appeared back on deck in late afternoon, Mik avoided her. Ula took this in stride, and proceeded to mingle with the ship’s crew-even lending a hand with the ongoing chores. Clearly, she knew her way around a boat, though her presence seemed to cause as much distraction as help.

Mik double-checked his headings and set the crew to taking depth readings, not wanting to come upon any reefs or submerged shoals unaware. He also kept a lookout aloft at all times.

Mostly this duty fell to Trip, as the kender actually enjoyed sitting atop the mast. Additionally, with Trip in the rigging, the rest of the crew didn’t have to watch over their small possessions quite so diligently.

Trip scanned the horizon as much as he watched the seas ahead. He constantly reported interesting flocks of birds, or the distant spouts of whales, or the clowning of pods of black and white Turbidus dolphins.

At dusk, Trip spotted a storm system on the western horizon. Mik eyed the gale carefully until dark, and then watched its lightning flashes late into the evening. He knew the further north they sailed the more treacherous the weather would become. Few ventured into the depths of the Turbidus Ocean at summer’s end, and fewer still returned to tell the tale. The chances of Kingfisher being swamped or wrecked if a typhoon hit them were high-and such storms moved faster than any ship could sail.

Mik considered adjusting their course, but a quick consultation with Meinor convinced him to keep the tiller steady. The sea remained clear of reefs through the night, and depth readings confirmed that they were sailing into ever deeper parts of the northern Turbidus Ocean.

Mik rose before dawn once more, and sneaked a quick glance at the black diamond while Ula slept. The sea elf had been up late the previous evening, chatting guardedly with the crew and-once-even approaching Karista Meinor.

Whatever Ula had said, though, Karista soon retreated with Bok to her cabin. The look of frustration on the sea elf s face told Mik she’d made no progress with the singleminded aristocrat. Mik had retired at that point as well, and not wakened when Ula returned to her berth.

She did not stir that morning as he locked the diamond artifact back in his sea chest once more.

The salt breeze had shifted during the night, and now blew in strong from the west-where the immense thunderstorm still clung to the horizon. The waves began to pile up upon themselves, growing larger until their peaks danced away in sprays of white mist.

Kingfisher ran before the wind all that day. Karista and Bok fussed around the deck, nervously awaiting the outcome. Ula walked from stem to stem-alternately peering toward their hidden destination, and the pursuing storm.

As dusk drew near, Trip began jumping up and down on the sparring so vigorously that Mik feared he might topple off the mast.

“I see them!” Trip called. “I see the Dragon Isles!”